Images

An elderly Ibu catching some shut-eye before the crush of the morning market.


Seriously.


The Kid brings you another Grand Conclusion - dudes are the same everywhere.


The bride and groom at a traditional Javanese wedding.


The view from my roof. The sunsets after the rain are surreal.


This dude is the bane of my existence. Unfailingly, he and his stupid kiddie cart come by my house at 7:00AM every time I have a day off. He plays this seven note jangle on repeat until I am forced to either start my day or go insane from grade-J Disney wannabe aural torture. Alas, the trials and tribulations of a Fulbright scholar.


A prototypical Ibu manning her station in the market. Ibu Nana, who cooks me lunch five times a week, buys all of our food fresh each day.


A very bad photograph of a very good motorcyle. I haven't officially named it yet, but I'm leaning towards "Screaming Eagle Thou Shalt Bestoweth Olde Glory." I'm open to suggestions. Note the bomb marking the entrance to this RT (neighborhood) in Madiun.


Floss, anyone?


It's in the eyes.


A typical scene from a not-so-typical Javanese village. Mlese was crushed by the earthquake in May. 95% of the village's houses were either partially or completely destroyed.


The last time I visited earthquake-affected Mlese Village near Jogyakarta, I went with my normal team from KOMPIP, a local NGO, as well as with Kevin and Jenni, two representatives from our American sponsor, the Real Medicine Foundation. We met with the 19 village heads who will be responsible for distributing the $12,000 grant that RMF has made possible. We fielded questions from the 18 men and 1 woman, explaining how microfinance works and what the obligations of the community and indivudals are.


The Kid with Weedy. We broadcast a weekly show called "English Eve" where we field calls and take SMSs (text messages) from people who want to practice their English. See my entry, "Stress".


Madiun at the start of musim hujan (the rainy season), only some three kilometers from the center of the city. I don't know the numbers, but a large percentage of the city's residents are still predominantly farmers. A ten minute drive outside the city, and you're in the middle of infinite rice paddies and sugar fields.


The Kid finally got a uniform. Now I'm a guru asli (real teacher). Some local middle school girls came and interviewed me about English one day. They had absolutely no idea what they were saying or how to interview, but Ibu Irvi (third from right) nonetheless insisted that we take this really bad photo in front of the school's coat of arms.


Downtown Madiun. One dude selling gas (bensin) by the liter, another passed out in his becak. The Pasar Besar (Big Market) is visible in the background.


The Kid, John "Sea Foam" Pederson (sans beard), Deanna, and Ethan "The Wire" Perry yucking it up in Surabaya after the TEFLIN conference.


A gorgeous photograph (that I found on the Xinhua China news website) of Mount Merapi erupting in August. Located some thirty kilometers from Yogyakarta, where I will be meeting my Aunt Rose this weekend, Merapi is still considered one of the world's most active and dangerous volcanoes. Welcome to Indo, Roscha!


I was a model in a fashion show this past Friday. Yes - I can now officially include the title "Male Model" on all future resumes. Here I am in front of a cathedral backdrop (notice it's edge on the right) to keep in line with the wedding themed show. This is NOT a joke. My, um, co-models - Sandi; his 15 year-old girlfriend (who just so happens to be one of my tenth grade students at SMA2); and Nina. If you didn't believe me already, hopefully this will convince you - this country is RIDICULOUS.

The Infidel

I finally broke through. For the past few days, I have been hanging out with a beautiful woman named Nina. Once again helping me out in a pinch, Klub Bali, my fitness center/pool/social nexus, was the scene for our introduction. Last week, after finishing some meatheadish activity like benchpressing or deadlifting, I approached Nina, with whom I had been playing eye tag for the past few days. In a hybrid English-Indonesian conversation, we made small talk and she introduced herself. She is a twenty-five year-old of mixed Javanese-Chinese and Dutch descent originally from Madiun. After graduating from Jatmaiah University with a degree in economics, she stayed in Jogyakarta, Java’s throbbing center of culture, art, and youth, where she worked as a model and waitress for two years. Following her parents’ wishes, she returned to Madiun this past June after the May 26th earthquake in Jogya. She was uninjured, but she and her family were severely spooked.
In any case, Nina has been teaching me Bahasa Indonesia and Javanese while I help her with her English. We meet after our workouts at Klub Bali and share dinner or iced tea while laughing off people’s slack-jawed stares. She is absolutely gorgeous, and together with my recent drinking session in the back of the rice delivery Fukuda, has ignited within me a newfound enthusiasm for Madiun.
Over the past two weeks at Klub Bali, I also met a rather beefy individual. I didn’t learn his name, so I’ll call him Pak Meathead here. Through our garbled conversation between squats, he told me that he is in the military. Pak Meathead is only five foot six or so, but he has the physique of a professional bodybuilder. He wears military fatigues, a see-through camo-green mesh tank top, a Nike baseball hat, a black pleather fanny pack, and a pair of Ferrari-themed Pumas every day when he works out. He obviously likes to be the center of attention, and it seems like he makes a concerted effort to slam down the weights whenever he finishes with a set. He also grunts. A lot.
This evening, when I arrived at the fitness center, Nina greeted me with a hug and requested a peck on the cheek, which I obliged. I am leery of public displays of affection here, which I have not seen anywhere. However, I had often witnessed Nina giving European-style double cheek kisses to both men and women. After all, she did spend two years living and working in a very progressive and culturally hip city. As the request came from an Indonesian, and a very attractive one at that, I felt that the innocent kiss was perfectly within bounds. Apparently Pak Meathead thought differently.
While Pak Meathead didn’t say anything directly to me – I wear a tank top when I work out, and between my height, girth, and voluminous amount of sweat, I reckon that I have him as equally intimidated of me as I am of him – he did harass Nina, and start making trouble with others.
I failed to notice at first, but Nina approached me with a very concerned look on her face. “Nick, I’m worried. He’s talking about fighting you and calling you an orang kafir,” an infidel. “I know he’s just jealous, but be careful, OK?”
I took a look in Pak Meathead’s direction, and saw him chest bumping and grunting with an even more massive beef steak friend of his. “Hey, tidak apa apa, don’t worry about him,” I told her. I didn’t think that Pak Meathead would be dumb enough to make a move in the gym, but I picked up a two pound dumbbell and carried it with me around the gym for the rest of the workout. I wasn’t taking chances with a military man, and a very scary one at that.
At one point I asked him if he was using a barbell and bench, and despite not having touched the equipment for ten minutes, he replied brusquely, “Saya pakai,” I’m using it. For the remainder of the evening, Pak Meathead made exceptionally loud grunts, and slammed weights around the gym like they were pillows. I avoided all eye contact, and he did the same, especially when in close proximity.
I didn’t really mind his testosterone driven animosity. After all, I had, in a way, invited it by kissing Nina’s cheek. I played rugby for three years in college, and hung out in fraternities, and am well acquainted with the type of guys like Pak Meathead who need to prove their virility by intimidating the world. He is obviously the type of man, if you can call him that, who gets his kicks by proving to everyone else how tough he is. He started harassing Nina as well, grabbing her arm and blocking her path when she was trying to move around the gym. I asked her if she needed help, but she said she could handle it.
What really gets me though is the fact that he called me orang kafir, an infidel. Pak Meathead was not defending Islam, and I was not posing a threat to his religion. I had seen him on past days trying to hold Nina’s hand. She had always rebuffed his attempts, or played along awkwardly if the situation was unavoidable. The fact that he used my non-belief in Islam as a pretext for his hostility is one hundred percent unacceptable, and is what angers me almost as much as his abuse of Nina.
Throughout this blog, I am trying to limit the breadth of my extrapolations. But then again, that is how sociology, cultural anthropology, and many other social sciences are conducted – by using instances and anecdotes from the day-to-day to paint a larger picture of a culture and society. I was trained as a geographer, and university level human geography courses are often focused around scalability and deduction.
I want to take Pak Meathead and draw some – admittedly generalized – conclusions from his actions. If Pak Meathead is a viable indicator, it can be deduced that the largest underlying rationales that drive individuals to turn to radical Islamism are jealousy and fear.
Fundamentally, Islam did not play into the situation at all. Yes, it is possible that his religious sensibilities were inflamed by my and Nina’s greeting. However, if his past actions are any gauge, it is much more likely that his hostile response was a reaction to his having failed to succeed. (I mean no offense here to women, and I hope that readers understand that by defining Nina as an “objective” of sorts, I am not being macho chauvinistic, but simply making a parallel.) Just as Pak Meathead looked around the gym and saw me cavorting with what he takes to be “his woman,” I posit that a large number of radical Islamists are driven towards hatred when they look around their surroundings, and then compare them to what they see on TV and in advertisements. They see Westerners, and particularly white Westerners, occupying their world.
This discussion requires much more space, and may become the backbone for future research and work that I pursue. I would like to hear your comments.
Also, rest assured, I will keep a cool head, be careful, and if Pak Meathead’s rage cannot be mollified, be the first one to find a new health club.

House

In Madiun, I only teach twenty hours per week. I consequently have one hundred twenty hours per week of free time on my hands. My first month and a half here, I found myself overcome by boredom more oftentimes than not, and I spent much of my days napping and reading books in the privacy of my house. I began to remind myself of the Peace Corps volunteer whom I spoke with in Thailand, who resorted to sleeping fourteen hours per day for lack of anything better to do while he was serving in a remote village in Kenya.
Oftentimes, I found myself craving the solitary haven of my room after a long day of teaching and being bombarded by “Hello Misters!” while waiting at red lights. When I returned from my month-long holiday to Sumatra and Lombok, I actually found myself turning down social invitations from would-be friends. My fundamental gregariousness was being subsumed beneath daily barrages of mentally attenuating cultural mayhem. I felt minimally compelled to reach out, locked in a catch twenty-two of moderate depression and a lack of desire to integrate with my new surroundings.
However, I was sent to Indonesia by the American government not only to teach English, but also to serve as a “Cultural Ambassador,” not to sequester myself in an air conditioned room with “A Clockwork Orange” and the bizarre thoughts that it brought. Something had to change, and after a week of commiserating with myself after my return from a month in paradise, I began to be proactive about reaching out into the community.
The best way I found to integrate myself into multifaceted everyday life in Madiun was through sports. Indonesians may not look like athletes – at least not the American model of bulging biceps and palpable intensity – but the vast majority of them secretly are. Take for example Pak David, the vice principal of the school where I teach. I eat lunch at his house everyday, and for my first few months in Madiun, I was struck only by how ridiculously silly he was. With his family and me cloistered around the dining room table, he would randomly break into girlish squeals of awkward laughter, prompting uncomfortable glances from everyone present. Was this guy serious? In the U.S., if any fifty year old man laughed like that – let alone a fifty year-old man in a position of relatively high authority and respect – he would instantaneously be met with a verbal can of whoop ass, if not something more physically painful. Yet in Indonesia, he gets away with it. His peals of adolescent merriment actually started to become a private source of animosity for me. I began to dread visiting his house for lunch, despite the unrelentingly delicious spreads that his wife served everyday, solely because his laugh was so disconcertingly bizarre.
Well, it turns out that Pak David is actually a karate black belt dan three, which puts him only two notches away from the venerable likes of Chuck Norris and Jean Claude van Damme. To boot, he’s also a renegade ping pong player with an unbeatable backspin serve – if you’ve never played competitive ping pong before, don’t scoff – under a midday tropical sun, it can be a daunting cardio workout. One day over lunch, between rounds of his rice flecked jollity, I expressed interest in learning Pencak Silat, the traditional Javanese martial art that resembles a combination of karate and capoeira. “Oh, have at SMA Dua every afternoon Friday. Can come, but usually you not here on Friday. You like go Bali!” Which was followed by a self-amused squeal. He continued, “You like karate?” It was an interesting proposition. Despite my prior track record of failure at Judo as a pudgy, squat-legged fifth-grader, the idea of practicing the world’s most well-known martial art was appealing. “Yeah, sure, Pak. When?” “Tomorrow.”
The next evening, we left his house at 6:30, a full half hour behind schedule. After three months in country, I had grown accustomed to jam karet, rubber time, and was no longer perturbed by the everyday ad hoc scheduling changes and delays that are an intrinsic part of the social fabric. We zipped off on his bike, looking like two misplaced members of the Village People, he still adorned in the regalia of his school uniform, and me in his karate togs, which went only as far as my knees.
When we arrived at the session, I let out an audible groan of dismay, and immediately acknowledged that I had stumbled into a Monty Python, Da Ali G Show, or Mr. Bean segment. Wednesday evening karate practice was apparently for children ages fourteen and under – and me, the lone foreigner and student of any stature over five foot three. “Pak, are you serious?” He squealed, “Oh, YES! Is all children, YES?! You will be so funny!” This was not the way I envisioned starting my meteoric rise to Stefan Segal-dome. “Pak, I’m sorry, bro, but this is not going to work.” Before we even dismounted from his motor bike, gaggles of children in billowing white uniforms were beginning to point, stare and laugh. There must have been a hundred and fifty of them, and I imagined them all gearing up to laugh at the giant of a white dude who had somehow stumbled into their weekly session, clad in a comically mis-sized uniform, with no idea of what he was doing.
One of the karate masters – if you hadn’t noticed already, I really have no idea what I’m talking about, with regards to most things, but specifically when it comes to anything involving Japanese and highly coordinated kicking and chopping motions – approached us and gave Pak David a hearty handshake and a big smile. The guy was a house. He was wearing 1980s-era spackled jeans and a ridiculously tight black t-shirt, his gargantuan biceps popping out like slabs of raw meat. My first question for him, in prototypical jock fashion, was “How much can you bench?” Bear in mind that lacking the vocabulary for any fitness related pursuit, I pantomimed the action, which brought chortles of laughter from both Pak David and the hordes of karate chopping children that had surrounded us. “150 kilos,” he responded, with a big goofy grin on his close-cropped head. Krikey, I did a quick conversion. That’s like 330 pounds! (Note: He’s still the biggest house of an Indonesian that I’ve seen in person, although it’s reputed that the female body building circuit may be coming to Madiun in the spring. Keep your fingers crossed!)
After some deliberating and handshaking with more karate master bros, it was decided that attending tonight’s session was, thankfully, actually too ridiculous a proposition, even for Indonesia. Just as I was letting out a sigh of relief and thanking the gods of syndicated programming, I was told to come to practice on Friday – with the military. Oh shit, was my first reaction. Although, after I turned around to confront the writhing mass of crazy-eyed youths that was my alternative, it actually didn’t seem too bad. “I will pick you up at 8:00 in the morning,” one of the karate master bros told me in Bahasa Indonesia. “And don’t forget, this is the military. Be on time.”
“Ha ha, right,” I responded meekly, “no jam karet.”
“Right,” his smile lines could cut diamonds.

I had set my alarm for 7:40AM the night before, but decided to snooze through to 7:50. At 7:48, still in my boxers lying half conscious in bed, I heard the padlocked gate to my house rattling. I sprang out of bed and leaped into my karate kit before my eyes were even open. This guy wasn’t kidding.
It was a ten minute drive to the Polisi Militer facility, and the whole way, despite the sun not even being fully up yet, I was sweating bullets under my red, white and blue motorcycle helmet. These dudes are going to destroy me, I thought to myself. Indonesians may be some of the silliest people to have ever graced this good Earth, I carried on, but military folk are different. I began repeating “Shoulda stuck with the kids” like some deranged mantra under the drone of 125cc’s. Shouldastuckwiththekids, shouldastuckwiththekids.
The minute we pulled into the facility, my apprehension immediately began to melt away. While the sentries at the gate were all dressed in full fatigues and blue UN style berets, M-16s at the ready, they all greeted us with big smiles and resounding HOUSE’s barked in deep baritones. House, right, I thought to myself. I was too relieved to have not been interrogated to even bother thinking what that could mean. As we drove through the compound, a meandering set of streets and large cement parade grounds surrounded by palm trees and camouflaged Jeeps, anyone we passed greeted us with a full throated “HOUSE!” There were groups of uniformed men doing push-ups and pull-ups, some drinking coffee in front of tidy office buildings, and others sprawled underneath trucks tinkering with lordonlyknows what.
Pak Sor Sampai, the chief karate bro master, parked his bike and indicated that I should go meet the others while he changed into his kit. The first guy in a karate uniform that I saw was cleaning his teeth with his white belt. “Selamat pagi,” good morning, I said.
“HOUSE!” he responded, and bowed awkwardly with a silly grin on his face. “Pagi.” As I would learn later, house is not some secret military salutation, but merely a form of respect and deference paid to your opponent within the karate world. The tooth-cleaning soldier proceeded to utter a string of words that I couldn’t understand, and per usual, I nodded my head in agreement, interjected a few “YA’s” here and there, and smiled.
As the other karate students filed out of the barracks, I became more and more comfortable. I was the youngest man there – no women – by at least ten years. Most of the guys had their uniform tops flapping open, revealing more kegs than six packs, with belts draped around their necks and cigarettes lodged in the corners of their mouths. Most everyone came over and said a hello of some sort to the new bule karate trainee. By the time the session started, I was at ease.
The session was painless, minus the knuckle push-ups on a cement-lined driveway. I now have thirty or so new friends, and my apprehensions about the Indonesian military have been diminished a bit - maybe undeservedly so, as you’ll read in the next blog entry. In any case, fitness has become key to my existence here, and between two karate sessions, two basketball games, four gym sessions, and time in the pool each week, I’m turning into quite a bit of a house myself.

The Fukuda and the Faith

Just when I was starting to totally lose faith in the fair city of Madiun, last night my friends rallied, and completely reinvigorated my positive attitude towards this place, its people, and the second half of my year-long stay in Indonesia. It was 8PM, and I was making my way from a wedding ceremony at the local banquet hall to the self-proclaimed “AcousticGavanza” night at Klub Bali, my fitness center/swimming pool/nexus of social life in Madiun. The “Gavanza” turned out to be a group of high school boys wailing shitty covers of Indonesian pop songs, accompanied by poorly played guitars and even more poorly syncopated techno keyboard lines. Welcome to Madiun on a Saturday night.
I sat around and chatted with some acquaintances, nodding at the Klub Bali regulars as they sauntered into the outdoor patio area next to the pool, some arm-in-arm with would-be lovers and spouses, others looking awkwardly for a group to sit with. Lea, a local six-foot-tall model whom I did some work with in order to promote the upcoming Klub Bali New Year’s Bash, was there, but her conversation was limited to talk about watches and tennis. Her friend Enga, a militant looking twenty year-old girl with cropped hair and big horned rimmed glasses, was also there. When Enga started talking about hunting wild pigs, I sensed it was time to change venues.
Saying goodbyes to the assorted people on the patio, I made my way out of the Klub, shot the shit with the parking attendants in my very limited Boso Jowo (Javanese) for a few minutes, and then roared off for home on my motorcycle. It was just shy of 9PM. Before heading back, I took a spin around the alun-alun, town square. By day a tranquil spot to sit and watch the ebb and flow of the city’s traffic, on a Saturday night, the alun-alun bursts to life with food, t-shirt, and toy vendors, picnicking families, clusters of adolescents, and ad-hoc musical and theatrical performances. I remained on my bike, maneuvering through the bumper to bumper traffic and the clouds of smog that the thousands of motorbikes present produced. After coughing up a lung and just barely avoiding half a dozen dismemberments, I broke away from the axis of Madiun social life and headed for the tranquility of the rice paddies and my house.
When I arrived home, an SMS (text message) from my buddy Niko was waiting for me. “Bro. Where are you now? Let’s hang out 2gether. My friend come to my house. What about if i go to your house later? Lets having wishkey?” Whisky and Niko?! What an excellent proposal. Niko is originally from Madiun, but goes to school and lives in Jogyakarta at present. I replied to his text, “Aku pulang kini. Ikut ke rumahku ya? I’m home already. Come on over.”
Twenty minutes later, an already hammered Niko and his three friends showed up. A photographer, part-time student, and full-time goofball, Niko has an unkempt head of rarely washed black hair that hangs down to his mid-back. His teeth and gums are more intimidating than Steven Tyler’s, and his propensity for drink and merriment make him the center of attention no matter whether he’s leading his rock band on the slopes of a disruptive Mount Merapi, or in the pool halls of a slumbering Madiun. “HAI, BRO! What’s up?” He proclaimed loudly while unsheathing his mane of hair from beneath a yellow and gold football helmet, a la Jack Nicholson in “Easy Rider.”
“Not much, bro. Apa rencanamu? What’s your plan?”
“Oh, you know, get drunks, maybe whisky. Can watch the TV?”
We spent the next hour and half mesmerized by “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”, horsing around during commercial breaks, consuming the vile three-dollar vodka that Niko and his buddies like to mix with Sprite and onion flavored rice crackers. At one point, when his buddies had left to restock on liquor, mixers, and snacks, Niko leaned over to me and said, “Bro, have you ever had your heart brokens? What does I do”
He had recently split-up with his girlfriend of three years, after she found amorous SMSs from him to a fifteen year-old high school student in a neighboring city. “Well, bro, it just takes time. That and some flowers.”
“YAAAAA,” he lamented remorsefully.
Niko’s buddies returned, and proceeded to finish three bottles of Redbull, another thunderbird of cheap vodka, and enough onion rice crackers to feed a small village. When the movie was nearing its end, Niko stood-up and announced, “OKAY, I go drive my daddy’s Fukuda, wait here for me, ya?”
“Right, bro, whatever you say.”
Half of what Niko says is unintelligible, or at least not meant for public digestion. I knew Niko would be back soon, and that was all that mattered.
Ten minutes later, I heard an atrocious roaring noise coming from out on the street. “What the f^*k?” The other guys followed me and we went outside to take a look. There on the street, wearing a worn leather jacket with the golden helmet and his long hair spilling out every which way, sat Niko on a remarkable contraption. As explained to me – and later confirmed when I met the man – Niko’s dad is a polio survivor who delivers rice from farmers to wholesalers around Madiun. The machine that Niko was sitting on was a motorbike with a mini-pick-up bed on top of a double axle in place of the rear wheel. The name “Fukuda” came from the name that was stenciled onto the tailgate in bright orange letters. “OKAY, BRO. Ayo, let’s go.”
After I turned off the TV and locked up the house, the other four of us hopped into the three foot by five foot pick-up bed, scrunched together like mismatched rice crackers. While passing around the thunderbird and a shot glass found somewhere, we hollered at the top of our lungs and listened to the ridiculous dingdonging of the Fukuda’s fire engine-like horn. Niko meanwhile would turn around while driving and begin to holler incoherently at us until someone screamed that he was driving straight towards a tree, at which point he would quickly turn back around and release a long, drawn out “YAAAAAA!”
Our first stop was back at the alun-alun. Where three hours earlier thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, lay sprawled around the open grass area, by this point (midnight) the town square was almost entirely empty. A few couples sat around the perimeter holding one another, and a handful of food and trinkets vendors sat chatting silently amongst themselves. The five of us sat on a cement wall and continued to take swigs of the vodka, shelling peanuts and hollering at passing motorbikes. “AYO, let’s go!” proclaimed Niko in Javanese. “Let’s take Nick to the underground market!” Well now didn’t that sound exciting!
The underground market was quite literally underground. In the middle of Madiun proper, about two hundred meters from the alun-alun, there is a large complex called the “Pasar Besar”, the Grand Market. We drove into the normal entrance, and then down a steep ramp, which resulted in a chorus of cries of pain as the four of us in the back had our coccyx bones compounded as the Fukuda bottomed out. Niko pulled into a small, dimly lit alcove where four shirtless men sat around plates of rice and fried noodles, drinking tea and Extra Joss, an Indonesian take on the powdered energy beverage, while another half naked man lay sleeping on a pile of rags and bamboo slats. The four guys I was with ordered plates of eggs, rice, chilis, and chicken, and iced teas for everyone. I picked-up a copy of the Jawa Post sitting on one of the bamboo benches, and read in Bahasa Indonesia about the latest soccer news from the English F.A. Premier League while trying to ignore the squawking chickens and snoring man only an arms’ breadth away.
Once the fellows had sated themselves, my buddy Shendi took me for a walk through the market. It was almost 1:30AM now, and villagers were bringing their goods and wares to sell at the Sunday Morning Market some five hours from now. Ancient Ibus lay sprawled amongst green and purple eggplants, inexplicably long sprouts, and grotesque jackfruits. Bare-chested and tawny old men transferred mountains of bamboo wrapped fish from still-running trucks to the dirt and fly encrusted cement floor. Other Ibus in crusty and faded batik sarongs huddled in small groups chatting, while some daring individuals balanced precariously on the seats of their bikes, sleeping in the most remarkable and incomprehensible positions. We passed veritable geological formations of red and yellow chilies, the unprocessed source of all my gustatory pleasure, and all my gastrointestinal pain. To no one in particular, I stated, “I wonder what makes these people maintain this lifestyle? Why not move to the city?”
“Being farmer is very difficult life,” remarked Shendi, “Must wake up early, do work at house, do work in field. But they have much maksud. How means in English?” And after I shrugged my shoulders, he continued, “Purpose.”
We returned to the food stall, where one of the guys had passed out in the back of the pick-up. Niko was poking him and laughing. The four men at the food stall sat impassively watching their teas. Their friend still snored and the chickens still squawked. We piled back into the Fukuda – “FUCK YOU DA!” Niko had proclaimed earlier in the evening – and rumbled and dingdonged back to our respective homes.

Intercultural (Mis)understanding

Intercultural understanding. What a bizarre concept. During my days off here in Madiun (of which there are many), a few times a month I accept invitations to speak at local private and public high schools and colleges. What, might you ask, do I, a newly minted college graduate, have to offer? It turns out, in the eyes of Indonesians anyway, a lot. Early last week, Pak Suprianto, my favorite teacher at SMA2, informed me that should I wish, I had an engagement lined-up at SMA1 in Ponoroggo, an hour’s drive from Madiun. The night before the talk was to take place, I received an SMS (text message) from Pak Pri. “nick, my friend will pick up u in mdn tomorrow at 8 o’oclock at school. but I want to contact first, i’ll contact u later. u prepare cross culture understanding amrca and indonsia and education.” Okay, I thought to myself, and promptly fell asleep.
In the car the next morning, despite the eagerness of my escorts to talk with me, I couldn’t help from falling asleep. It had been so long since I had been in a car with seat belts, or at least one not packed full of Indonesians, that I relished the thought of unencumbered leg room, the uninhibited ability to drool at will, not having to wear a cumbersome helmet, and the undeserved feeling of security that comes with riding in a car after spending months on motorbikes, rickety buses, and vomit lined ferry boats. I think they took my silence as haughtiness. In reality, the pair of middle-aged men just didn’t understand what I meant when I had said that I really needed coffee.
There we have a perfect example of intercultural misunderstanding. Coffee drinking here is seen as a social activity, where it can take hours to consume a single cup while bercakap cakap (chit chatting) over cigarettes and flip flops. In the U.S., coffee drinking is serious business. Yeah, people might get together to talk over a cup of joe, but more oftentimes than not, it’s the consumption of caffeine that really drives the conversation. I’ve weaned myself down to a cup or two a day here. Maybe the inverse proportion of lethargy-to-caffeine-consumption has helped me chill out a bit, but still, in a land whose namesake appears over Starbucks counters around the world, you would expect coffee on demand 24/7. Unfortunately, my pining after the black gold usually just ends in snickers from my hosts, who admire my intestinal fortitude, but look down on my perpetual quest for caffeine nonetheless. In any case, by means of a long-winded explanation, my sleepy demeanor should not be attributed to self-perceived cultural arrogance, but rather a lack of chemically induced vim and vigor. But I digress.
We arrived at the high school to an eruption of cheers. Two hundred students dressed in tan blouses and chocolate brown slacks and ankle-length skirts were waiting in the musholla, or prayer room, where I would be speaking. Unlike my school in Madiun, where only one in ten girls wears the female headscarf (the jilbab) in Ponoroggo, over half the young women were covered.
Before addressing the crowd of students, I met with the headmaster and a handful of English teachers, who spoke to me in Bahasa Indonesia for ten minutes. They wanted to know how they could get a “native English speaker” like me to come to their school, and how they could send their students to America to study. I gave them the AMINEF web address, and wished them luck, not sugarcoating the fact that competition was fierce.
I was ushered out to the musholla, where after saying “Good morning” I was met with rounds of applause. Every day in class, I receive the same treatment – cheering, yelling, clapping. There is no doubt in my mind that such veneration is contributing in large part to the inflated sense of self-worth that I have been accumulating here. Imagine what a different world this would be if inner-city teachers in New York, LA, and Chicago were cheered before starting their every class.
Sitting on the floor in front of a divan and two hundred wide-eyed students, I was brought bottles of ice tea and Fanta, bananas, salak and rambutan fruits, and after half an hour, a box filled with Indonesian deep-fried snacks and sweet cakes. I was introduced by Pak Hasim, an English teacher who, as he explained to me, had already made the hajj to Mecca, fulfilling one of the five fundamental pillars of Islam. At one point, he asked my religion, and as recommended by Fulbright, I replied “Kristen, Christian” not wanting to spark some sort of problem. Instead, he went on to give me a lecture about Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael – the normal spiel that I give people who return blanks stares when I state that I am yahudi, Jewish – and he informed me that he had done a master’s thesis on Christian-Muslim relations. As he began enumerating passages from the New Testament, I quickly changed the conversation, not wanting to be called out for being a “bad Christian.”
After Pak Hasim’s introduction, two students gave opening remarks in English, thanking me for coming and wishing me a pleasant rest of my stay in Indonesia. “Oh, and yes Mister Nick,” continued Rosa, a pretty girl in the eleventh grade with glasses and long black hair, “before I allow the other students to ask you questions, may I ask you a question?”
“I don’t see why not, Rosa,” I said smiling, expecting some sort of question about Hollywood, New York City, American education policy, George W. Bush, or my opinions on Indonesia more broadly – the traditional Top Five Questions asked by groups of students. “Well, Mister Nick, what do you think of Indonesian girls? Is their skin too black?”
“Ummmmmmmm,” taken off guard for the umpteenth time, I stalled with mumbled answers and throat clearing coughs until I could reply. “Well, Rosa, I don’t think it is advisable for girls or women to use whitening products of any kind. Indonesian women are very pretty and smart already, and they don’t need to change their skin. You know, this is crazy for me, because in America, everybody – except maybe Michael Jackson – wants their skin to be dark like yours!” With that comment, the audience erupted into hollers of approval and bursts of laughter.
The remainder of the session was pretty straightforward. As the cut-out letters from my name fell onto my head from the welcoming sign behind me (see photo), I answered questions about education disparities, my favorite national park, my favorite Indonesian food, and how the students could receive scholarships to study in America.
Just as I thought I was in the clear, a jilbab-clad girl with thick glasses approached the microphone and said, “Mister Nick, why does President George Walker Bush hate Muslims? Now we hate him too. What do you think about President George Walker Bush?” This sort of question requires a fair bit of diplomacy and chutzpah to answer without putting yourself in a trap. Noticing the rapt attention of many students who had begun to doze off or chat with their friends, I made a concerted effort to realistically set forth my own thoughts and represent my country and President while providing an answer that would not just duck the issue, but would hopefully add some new light to what is undoubtedly a very lopsided discourse.
“Well, like most of you, I think, that President Bush’s war in Iraq was a bad idea.” Several mumbled words of approval drifted towards me from the crowd. “I do, however, feel that President Bush is trying to do the right thing. Most Americans do not hate Muslims, and President Bush does not hate Muslims. America went to war with Iraq not because we hate Muslims, but because our government received bad information from the FBI and CIA.” More mumbled approval, mostly from the male students, as they recognized the American intelligence community acronyms. “President Bush and the United States want to make life better for the rest of the world. Just like SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudyhono, the Indonesian President), President Bush wants to make more democracy, less poverty, and more opportunity for people everywhere in the world. I disagree with Mister Bush that war can make these things come true. That is why I was happy to see President Bush promise SBY almost 200 million dollars for education, healthcare, microfinance, and the development of infrastructure in Indonesia. War will never help or force people to like or understand one another. I think that by learning more about each other, we can help one another solve the world’s problems. That is why you must all continue to study English, and not be afraid to try using your English when you have the chance to practice with a native speaker. Great question, next!”
Phew. I thought I did a pretty good job dodging that one, although it certainly didn’t hurt that ninety percent of the audience could only understand half of what I said.
After some closing remarks, group photographs, and a lunch on what is reportedly Indonesia’s most tasty goat sate (it was enak sekali), I got back in the car with two new escorts, and promptly slept the entire way home.

Visuals

The Kid keeping it light after blowing-up last Tuesday.


Ethan "The Wire" Perry, Pak David, Ibu Nana, and The Kid in Madiun. The Wire stopped by for a twelve hour visit while touring around East Java. He's on a Fulbright grant in Padang, Sumatra. I stayed at his house while gearing up for Mentawai.


A speaking engagement on "Indonesian-American Intercultural Relations" at a nearby public school led to this mobsesh post-talkalot.


A silly becak dude in the heart of downtown Madiun.


The Kid at work. Notice the background. Right.

Disturbing the Harmony

In the Bahasa Indonesia textbook that I’ve been using to teach myself when I’m not too tired to stay awake, there is a “Kebudayaan Indonesia, Indonesian Culture” section called “Maintaining Harmony.” And I quote:
“Indonesian people, and especially the Javanese, tend to live in a state of ‘balance’ and ‘harmony’ with each other at all times. To see an Indonesian lose his/her temper, to curse or to denigrate another person is extremely rare. Everybody knows that it is much better to maintain the harmony, even if inwardly you are seething with anger… Indonesian people will go to great lengths to avoid saying anything which could possibly offend another person… Rather than saying ‘he is stupid’, they would tend to say ‘he is not all that bright’. Awful-tasting food might be described as ‘not all that tasty’ or ‘less than tasty’, in case the cook should hear of the criticism and the harmony be broken. They might say about another person that he/she is ‘less than polite’; in other words he/she is impolite, but they are not going to be impolite enough to say so.
“To Indonesians the most important trait in people is their ability to maintain harmony, to be well mannered and to speak politely at all times. So, take care when describing things and people, take care not to offend, and take care not to disturb the harmony.”
Well, in light of this recent cultural sesh, I guess Mr. Nick pulled a major cultural faux pas today. During my last class of the day, after sweating through three absent teachers and five hours of airless classrooms, I walked out on a class that had been misbehaving for the past hour. I was getting no participation, no answers, and no English. I simply said thank you, goodbye, and left the room.
For the rest of the day, students approached me with a sense of mortified reference, bowing to me and touching my right hand to their foreheads. “I am so sorry, Mr. Nick,” was a common refrain throughout the afternoon. “Tidak apa apa, don’t worry about it,” I would invariably respond. I may have disrupted the harmony, but the kids were doing their damndest to set my bule blunderings right.

TEFLIN

John, Ibu Hussai, and me. Ibu Hussai was the first female professor in Southern Sumatra, and is one of John's advisors in Sekayu, a hamlet three hours from the closest major town. Despite Ibu's impeccable English and serious credentials, she shied away from discussing political Islam with us. Maybe, unlike me, she just knows when to avoid a touchy subject.


After a weekend of debauchery and dancing in Surabaya, Monday morning Deanna and I flew to Jakarta. At the Sukarno Hatta International Airport (which was starting to feel like a home away from home away from home), we met-up with thirteen of the remaining seventeen Fulbright ETAs. The other four would be meeting us in Salatiga, where we would all spend the next three days attending the fifty fourth annual Teachers of English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia (TEFLIN) international conference. According to the TEFLIN mission statement, “The objective of TEFLIN is to provide English teachers with opportunities to share and discuss contemporary issues, trends, and development in language teaching, learning, and research.”
Nelly, the Fulbright Indonesia co-coordinator, met us at the airport in Semarang – a large, heavily developed port city in northern Central Java – where she promptly herded us onto a bus for the one hour ride to Salatiga. We slowly began to climb out of the smog and chaos of a typical Javanese city, speeding south through rolling green hills and rice paddies. An hour later, we were in Salatiga, a lovely colonial former Dutch hill station, where we would spend the remainder of the week in yet another four-star hotel, living the high life courtesy of Paman (Uncle) Sam.
The conference was titled “English Language Education Policies: Responding to National and Global Challenges” and was held on the surprisingly gorgeous Satya Wacana Christian University campus. Shuttled to the tree-lined campus courtesy of our hotel, I arrived and thought that I had died and gone to heaven. With a student body of 8,000, there were beautiful, young, and most likely smart and interesting women everywhere. Although I had just spent the weekend in Surabaya, rubbing shoulders with East Java’s glitz and glam set, the contrast between Salatiga and Madiun was still shocking. Whereas in Madiun the only interaction I have with females consists of fending off the “I LOVE YOU, MISTER” cat-calls hurled at me from doting students, on the Satya Wacana campus, most girls wouldn’t even give me the time of day. It was like drinking from the well of psycho-sexual reality, and was a refreshing ego shrink.
Because Satya Wacana is Christian, and only some fifteen percent of the student body is Muslim, jilbabs are a rare sight amongst the students. However, at the same end of the religiously motivated spectrum, the SWCU mission statement proclaims “In order to achieve our mission as a ‘Creative Minority’, we hold this fundamental ideal: ‘The fear of God is the beginning of all knowledge.’” It might not be Muslim, but strict adherence to religious precepts was still pivotal. My admiration for the female student body would just have to remain unrequited.
The conference opened with a set of three rather tedious plenary sessions. However, between interludes of zoning out, dozing off, and catching up on international news and celebrity gossip, I did find one major point very interesting. Dr. Jack Richards, a giant in the field of Teaching English as a Second Language (referred to as TESL, TEFL, TESOL, ESL, and probably a host of other acronyms), lectured to the crowd of five hundred teachers, academics, and journalists about teaching English during dramatically and drastically changing times.
He talked of using English only as a second language, a communication tool, and not as a mechanism of cultural transmission. “We’re talking about an Indonesianized version of English, not some Indonesian-English hybrid, but fluent English spoken as an international language filtered through a local lens.” He differentiated between English the International Language, and American, Australian or British English, all of which come with cultural biases and idioms that can be incomprehensible on a global scale. He gave the example of a woman, one who speaks fluent English, who works for Cambridge University Press in Singapore calling the company headquarters in the UK. After asking where she should send a certain package, the prototypically British response she received involved thirty seconds of incomprehensible balderdash about “Ohwelllet’sseemightaswellrightumyeahwellyoushouldehhmmm…” Even after she had received an answer, she had no idea what had been said.
Dr. Richards’ point was that international English, the lingua franca used for multinational business, politics and social services around the world, should not be connected to any particular culture beyond the international global culture. What then defines the global rubric that speakers and learners should strive for, and who is to say what constitutes global culture, if it isn’t just a mish-mash of hundreds of regional, national, and local tastes? It was an interesting and provocative idea.
In the afternoon, I attended a workshop called “Responding to Globalization: Ideas for Creating Class Activities Within the Global Context.” The jilbab-clad professor in charge of the session elaborated on Dr. Richards’ point, describing how to teach on a local, intimate, comprehensible level while catering to and producing the world’s future global citizens. Much of Dr. Marsaban’s exercise focused on the needed respect for different beliefs, values and cultures, and how to integrate those lessons into the everyday classroom. After dividing the thirty or so people in the room into groups of five, she handed out slips of paper with one of the words “security, tolerance, equality, democracy, freedom, justice, community, and self-reliance” written on each. Each group was told to rearrange the words in order of priority.
The four jilbab-clad Ibus that I was working with put security first, followed by tolerance, followed by justice, followed by community. Democracy came second to last, and self-reliance came last. The exercise was an interesting look into cultural sensibilities, and would work well in a class. As the workshop was wrapping up and chairs were being scraped against the floor, a jilbab-clad Ibu from the back of the room blurted out “What is democracy?” in an unsteady burst of English. I wasn’t sure if she actually didn’t know what the word meant, of if she was just getting in her own personal parting shot.
One of the Ibus who had been in my group was Dr. Ika. We spoke for an hour after class over coffee and Javanese snacks – deep fried meat products and chocolate-cheese quasi-pastries. Dr. Ika was the first female professor in Southern Sumatra, and in her early sixties, currently designs English curricula for college students. After talking for a while, I broached a topic that has been at the front of my mind since arriving in Indonesia. “Bu,” I said, “one of the greatest challenges facing our global community today is the threat from radical Islam. It could stop globalization dead in its tracks and bring the entire world back two centuries. As a moderate Muslim, I would like to ask you, how can we bring those radicalized individuals into our global society? What role should education play?”
The well-respected, jilbab-clad grandmother-like figure took a few seconds to gather her thoughts, and then responded with a quizzical expression on her face. “Why are you interested in these things? I hate politics, it will be the ruin of all good plans. Would you like some more coffee?”

The next day, John, Elena, and I met to have lunch with five female Indonesian students. The night before, we had witnessed their presentation “One Holy Night,” spoken poetry about women and their mistreatment in Indonesian society. The poetry was provocative, and as the girls were all English majors, was for the most part grammatically intelligible, if not correct. We met the girls for Cokes and iced teas at the university canteen, a cement structure in the middle of campus offering pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs, in addition to the normal smattering of Indonesian food. Three of the girls were wearing sweatshirts despite the eighty degree day, while the other two wore pink t-shirts with slogans like “Suddenly Flower” and “Humanity” artistically emblazoned on the fronts.
Over a table made from a cigarette advertisement, we talked about women and gender studies, American novels, and second hand smoke. “My father pushed me, forced me to study English since I was young,” one of the nineteen year-olds recounted in unsteady English. “When I start university, I want to be faculty psychology, but my father graduated doctor from Washington, D.C., and he want me to know English, so…” Again, it was a pleasure to speak with Indonesian contemporaries who were smart, intelligible, and deeply involved with local culture. In Madiun, my English conversations are limited to banter about (but rarely with) girls, re-hydration beverages, and motorcycles.
TEFLIN was a case in point for me of how academics so often just serve peripheral roles. In Salatiga there were 500 experts in Indo English ed bouncing ideas off one another, yet there were no policy makers in the room. I felt like standing up and shouting, "YEAH, great ideas, now how are you going to actualize them?" A lot of the discourse seemed like self-congratulatory back patting, ultimately achieving little more than the perpetuation of an ineffective system. The failures are obvious, but the policy (as in the US) is dictated from a political platform high above the mud slinging, and thus misses the most pressing issues.

The Experience of Affluence

A few months ago, I received word via the equivalent of telegram from the Fulbright Jakarta office that my presence would be required in the Central Java city of Salatiga for an English teacher’s conference during the first week of December. Instead of paying for a bus ticket to Salatiga, which is a relatively short five hour ride from Madiun, Fulbright mandated that I travel to Surabaya (three hours by bus), fly from Surabaya to Jakarta (one and a half hours), fly from Jakarta to Semarang (forty five minutes), and then take another hour bus ride to Salatiga. As ludicrous as the rigmarole seemed, it made perfect sense considering the bureaucratic hocus pocus that takes place at the Jakarta office. In any case, my convoluted itinerary at least gave me the opportunity to spend my weekend in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city and home to my good friend Deanna.
I opted to take the train to Surabaya, and was treated to another picturesque journey through rice paddies, rubber forests, and infinite cassava fields. After arriving at the main station, I took a short taxi ride to the address that Deanna had given me. As the cabbie became progressively more lost, I marveled at the neighborhood that we were cruising around. Tall cement and cast iron gates enclosed fleeting views of verdant courtyards, parked Mercedes, and imposing Corinthian columns. The omnipresent bakso and sate vendors invariably still had shops set-up on every other block, but the streets were clean, even by Western standards. Deanna apparently lived in the posh part of town.
After multiple three point turns and repeated sorties into buildings to ask directions, the cabbie ultimately dropped me off in front of the correct address. I gave him the fare that we had agreed upon, but he stood waiting, staring beseechingly into my eyes, motioning with his hand towards his mouth. “Pak, come on bro, you charged me twice the normal fare to go ten minutes, when you said it would take thirty.” With a laugh, a friendly pat on the shoulder, and a drawn out “YAAAA,” he got back into his cab and drove away, leaving me in front of an impenetrable cast iron gate made of interlinked turtles. A security guard dressed in fatigues and an oversized pair of sunglasses materialized out of the ether and rang the doorbell. I heard a clatter and assorted commotions erupt from inside the house. While waiting awkwardly, I asked the guard if his sunglasses were from Deanna. “Bukan,” No, he responded. Well, so much for small talk.
I peered through the gate to see Deanna scampering towards me in front of an ancient ibu, hunchbacked, shriveled, and in full traditional (albeit faded) batik regalia. I heard the ibu going through the motions of releasing several padlocks, and when the large bronze door swung open, I was greeted by the toothless smile of a grandmother’s delight. After greetings and hugs, Deanna showed me into what can only be called The Compound. A life-size bronze tortoise protruded from one wall. A ten foot tall painted giraffe stood grazing amidst orchids and ferns. The house had high ceilings and marble floors, and armies of women shuffling about inside carrying various savory dishes to and fro. They all stopped to stare and giggle and receive a quick introduction from Deanna, who referred to all of them as “Bu.”
In the middle of the house was an inset courtyard, about thirty feet across, with a lushly vegetated (live) turtle sanctuary taking up most of the space. The interior of the house was classic Indonesian hippie kitsch, clean and neat but antiquated. Brown drinking glasses, Technicolor window shades, white artificial wood chairs, orange plastic cabinets – the things that I associate with photographs from my father’s childhood growing up in 1960s-era Brazil.
“Oh, yes, I see you are the good clean virgin.” I turned around to see a matronly ibu in her mid-70s striding purposefully towards me. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, yeah, Nick, this is Ibu Lika, this is her house,” Deanna explained.
“Oh, hello, bu, it’s nice to…”
“Yes yes yes, you are very handsome, and lucky you are tall or you would be very fat.”
“Ummmmm.”
“You are from New York, yes? I was there for a week before my husband died. He had to go to a conference in Las Vegas, and he left me in New York for a week. It was very lonely. People in New York are not like people here. They do not say hello and look at you in the face. Everybody is very serious. I did not like New York.”
“Ummmmmm.”
“Yes, I will call you jembut, it is a good nickname for you. You must always come stay here when you come to Madiun. I invite all the Fulbright people to come stay with me. You foreigners must have a home here in Indonesia, I know it can be very lonely. You must come here like a second home, yes? I know Madiun is very small, you need to come to a big city like Surabaya. You really should live here. Madiun is no place for a young man like you. All the beautiful girls leave and come to Surabaya. You must come live with me here in Madiun. Okay, now you will eat lunch. I will take a nap now, but tomorrow you will come to my son’s house, and we will go to the swimming pool. And I will find you a nice girlfriend here, yes. I have three girls for you. One is very pretty and good, the other is very smart and not so pretty, and the other is very naughty. But, yes, you do not know how to find the itil, I can see this. But it will be okay, you are very handsome and tall. Yes, this is your new home here. Madiun is no place for a young man, you must be come here. Okay, yes.”
With that, Ibu Lika waddled off into the kitchen leaving me feeling as if I had just been through a tsunami. “Are you serious? You deal with that everyday?”
“Yeah,” panted Deanna, “she’s a serious character. Her husband was a very successful orthopedic surgeon, but he died like twenty years ago.”
“Huh, and what does jembut mean? Why is that my nickname?”
“It means pubic hair.”
“Naturally, and what about itil? What does she mean “I can’t find the itil?”
“It means clitoris?”
“WHAT? What an extreme old lady.”
“Yeah, the computer guy came the other day and was talking with me about her. He said he was helping her with organizing her files, and like half the stuff on her hard drive is porn.”
“That actually doesn’t surprise me.”
While living in Madiun has undoubtedly served as an excellent introduction to the developing Muslim world, I have realized that extrapolating about the “Indonesian” or “Muslim experience” based on my perceptions there is a risky proposition. My wealth inherently separates me from the grand life choices – or lack thereof – that really make life in a developing country so different from life in America or western Europe. The life of an affluent expat, or any affluent person, living amidst relative poverty is by definition far removed from that of the mechanics, street vendors, janitors, post office employees, and even the teachers who make up the vast majority of the work force and population of a developing city and country. Ibu Lika lives in a similarly removed world of upper-class craziness, one that exists only for those who can afford the affluence of outlandishness. I reckon Ibu Lika and I are more similar than an initial reading would lend you to believe.

Deanna and I spent the night at Surabaya’s trendiest club, Blowfish. Located on the seventh floor of a downtown office building, by the time we arrived at midnight, the place was packed with fashionable, young, and beautiful Indonesians. DJs spun the latest international house beats while scantily clad women danced lasciviously on top of the bars. We could have been anywhere in the world, maybe with the exception of Madiun.
We were joined by two of Deanna’s friends, Ivan and Mimit, hip hop DJs at Surabaya’s most popular youth radio station. Mimit, who according to Deanna always wears the jilbab, was out for the evening with a floppy-eared ski hat on instead. It was a very interesting take on combining modern pop culture with a reverence for Muslim precepts, although I imagine she must have been sweltering.
After waking up late the next day, Ibu Lika wrangled Deanna and me into visiting her son’s house. Wawan’s place was even bigger than his mom’s. As stipulated by Javanese custom, Ibu Lika had bought Wawan his house for him after his wedding some fifteen years ago. Since then, his assorted business enterprises around the city have, apparently, done very well. He bought the two adjoining houses, and just a few days ago finished renovating the complex into a square-block sized compound complete with a basketball court, grilling station, pool and hot tub, Mediterranean and Classic Asian themed wings, a fish pond, and a state of the art media center.
When Deanna, Ibu Lika, her entourage, and I arrived, Wawan was welcoming two dozen other guests for a house warming cum “multi level marketing” session. While Deanna and I swam, watched high-definition rugby on ESPN, and gorged ourselves on freshly barbequed chicken sate, Wawan mediated the monthly Surabaya chapter Amway meeting. As the sun began to set, the meeting took a pause for the call to prayer. Women donned their full-body and head covering white prayer uniforms, and the men wore the peci, the Muslim prayer cap. One of the men from the meeting chanted the prayers from a spare bedroom above the basketball court. The full moon was rising over the rooftops, steadily creeping its way through the tangled mesh of barbed wire and satellite dishes. The prayers wafted through the sultry evening air as smoke from the barbecue drifted up towards gathering thunderheads.

That evening, I was treated to one of the most surreal experiences of my life. The day before, Deanna told me that we were invited to witness the filming of an Indonesian TV show, Lagu Rindu. That was all Deanna could tell me. Not relishing the idea of being part of a jilbab-clad studio audience, an only slightly more enthusiastic Deanna had to drag me to the affair. After changing into the red and black formal attire demanded by the teacher who had invited us (which meant jeans and a black t-shirt on my part), Deanna and I set off for the TVRI studios in Surabaya. TVRI is one of the national television stations, and is broadcast throughout the country. Daytime shows consist mostly of teary-eyed soap operas and B-side comedies. I had never seen a nighttime broadcast before.
Gorged on chicken sate and high quality home entertainment, we showed up at the studios at a quarter past nine, fifteen minutes late, but still perfectly within acceptable jam karet standards.
“OKAY OKAY OKAY, you are Ibu Ika’s bule yes? Let’s go, you are late,” a frenetic little man dressed in all black with a domineering headset around his neck met us at the studio entrance, and proceeded to usher us through a maze of hallways to a set of large swinging doors. Inside, about one hundred impeccably dressed middle-aged Indonesians sat gathered around tables set with white linen and crystal classes, nervously fumbling with their ties and purses. An eight piece band was on stage, dressed in matching aquamarine blazers and slacks. Six studio video cameras lay interspersed around the perimeter of the warehouse-sized room. And large, hot lamps hung from metal girders on the roof illuminating the spectacle as more small men dressed in black scurried between tables making last minute adjustments. As we entered the room, all eyes turned to us, not just with the normal “Oh, bules” sort of look, but with a more menacing “Oh, tardy inappropriately dressed bules” stare of disappointment and regret.
We were ushered to Ibu Ika’s table, directly within the sights of cameras Satu and Tiga. Ibu Ika, a woman in her mid-fifties who is a fellow English teacher at Deanna’s school, was seated at one of the twenty or so tables along with six other middle-aged women. All were dressed in very bright, very red outfits, ranging from full-body pantsuits to red leatherette jackets. Ibu Ika, a devout Muslim according to Deanna, had left her jilbab at home in favor of a black, bowler style hat. The others’ heads were uncovered.
“Oh, we were so nervous you wouldn’t show up!” Ibu Ika exclaimed in Bahasa Indonesia. “Blessed be Allah.” Brief introductions to the other Ibus were made, and a hush fell over the room as the countdown to broadcast began.
“Deanna!” I bent over and whispered “What the hell is going on? You told me we were going to be a studio audience. We’re not a studio audience, we’re center stage.”
“Just keep cool.”
An attractive girl in her mid-twenties with heavy make-up and an even more heavily sequined dress stood amidst the tables and began talking in rapid Indonesian. I was able to catch about a third of what she said, which consisted of “Welcome to the show” and “We have a special guest tonight, a former naval commander.” On a large flat screen TV located next to the band, I could catch glimpses of my large goofy head being broadcast to the other 15,000 islands in the archipelago. The band broke into a late-80s era piano-heavy jam, and a buxom woman from the audience rose to her feet and began singing Celine Dion.
“Deanna, are you serious? What is this?”
“I told you, I have no idea.”
Our table of crimson, scarlet, and cherry colored Ibus bounded up from their seats and began ballroom dancing with one another between and around the tables. Other couples did the same.
After the first tune ended, one of the larger and more intimidating Ibus returned to the table and demanded that I dance with her.
“Oh my god,” I pleaded with Deanna.
“Don’t be a baby.”
A new buxom and heavily made-up woman rose out of the crowd and busted into an Indonesian love song, eliciting loud cheers of approval from the audience. As I trampled the woman’s toes, I couldn’t help but notice that the large hi-definition screen intermittently flashed from images of the band, to solo close-ups of the singing Bu, to images of me bungling my way about the dance floor. I was led back to the table after the song had ended, and the Ibu thanked Deanna for letting “her borrow me.” Nary a word or look was passed my direction.
I sat sweating and staring slack jawed at my surroundings. Who watches this crap? I thought to myself. I never found out the answer to that question, and I never saw even so much as another hint or allusion to Lagu Rindu. Yet, after the hour-long program was over, I approached the young hostess. “You really should have danced crazier, like you did at the end,” she said in Bahasa Indonesia, referring to my reverse butt-shake boogie-down maneuver, executed in honor of my Aunt Rose, amidst thirty middle-aged Bus who were performing a choreographed line dancing piece. “When people dance like you,” the hostess continued, “we get higher ratings.”

Human body parts found inside croc

POSTED: 6:42 a.m. EST, December 6, 2006

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Villagers discovered two human hands, a leg and a T-shirt inside a 500-kilogram (1,000-pound) crocodile they trapped and killed in eastern Indonesia, a media report said Wednesday.

The five-meter long reptile, suspected of eating a 59-year-old fisherman last seen a week ago near a river in East Nusa Tenggara province, was hacked open by residents after it got caught Monday in a nylon snare, The Jakarta Post said.

When the villagers got over the shock of finding human body parts inside its abdomen -- together with skull fragments, strands of hair and a pair of shorts -- they cut the beast into pieces and divided up the meat.

It was unclear how many people the crocodile had eaten, but the paper said at least three have disappeared in recent months, all while fishing at the mouth of the Dusan II River.

The crocodile -- and at least two others believed to be still at large -- are also suspected of devouring dozens of cattle, pigs, goats and poultry.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.